Bead blast and paint Allis Chalmers G

Plan is to glass bead blast sheet metal and iron and soda blast engine of 1949 AC G.

Then will spray Rust-Oleum gray automotive Self-Etching Primer spray.

Then coat with Tisco TP282SP, which is supposed to be closest to Persian Orange #1.

Using 12 oz spray cans. Not looking to win prizes but something I'd be proud to show. Questions:

1) How many cans of spray paint would I need for one coat? (not doing the engine)
2) Experience with Tisco? (I know there are others)
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If you're going to all that trouble to prep it, do yourself a favor, have somebody paint it or go buy a $30 HVLP paint gun from Harbor Freight and buy some decent paint from a paint store. If you paint it with anything in paint cans your are going to be sick to your stomach in a few years of your pink tractor unless you treat it like a vampire and NEVER let the sun hit it, ever. You'll spend close to $200 on paint, reducer and hardener but it will look in 10 years like the day you painted it. I've bought a couple of pink Allis tractors that were painted with spray cans and the owner couldn't stand to look at it anymore. You seem to be putting in a lot of the hard work doing what most people scrimp on, painting is the easy stuff, the second time it ain't so much fun.

Beware and Know. Baking soda will not remove any rust. Baking soda must be completely cleaned and removed from the surface prior to painting. I blasted my tractor with crushed bottle glass. Head to toe. Blew it clean. Primed it with Rustoleum Self etching primer. Then purchased the Automotive paint and Sprayed it. 1 Gallon would do it. Mine is a gem. You can use the spray paint offered at Tractor Supply. It fades later to a dull look. Unless you go heavy on the Hardner and I mean Heavy and it will shine for a longer period. I used PPG. Single stage and buff. Good Luck.

Be interesting to see how this turns out. I just finished painting a series 3 D-17 NF gasser with spray cans. I used Rustoleum brand (Persian orange #2 for 1960 thru 1977), which I feel is much better quality than anything Tractor Supply has. It really looks nice and has a very nice shine and I have painted several tractors over the years with PPG and this is very good. NOT quite "show" quality, but really nice. I bought 24 cans from my local Thiesens store at a discount for the volume and paid $4.85 a can. Twenty four cans later I was done with at least three coats on all sheet metal (old paint left on underside), after bead-blasting and 2-3 coats of Rustoleum grey hi-build primer and a fair amount of fine sanding. I have learned to NOT remove the 50+ year old paint from castings. Just steam clean, brake kleen, scrape and wire brush as needed. Then, take scotch brite pads and hand scuff all the old paint for new paint to stick to, and clean off again. I only prime the chassis where there isn't any old paint there after cleaning. It will be shedded, but is still a working tractor on the farm. I have seen some "pinkish" colored Allis tractors years later when done with cheap paint. I don't expect that to happen. My reasoning was simple: I did all the sheet metal one piece at a time (blast, bondo, prime, sand and paint) at work on weekends. When it was all done, I did the bare chassis in my machine shed on a warm Saturday. I had a lot of masking to do on the chassis to leave black hoses unpainted for a nice contrast. Starter and alternator were removed and painted separately, again for contrast. I've got a little color difference in places, but most people will never notice that. It's not a car, where the body is one seamless line front to back. It's a tractor with lots of 3-dimensional levels hiding small color variances and some 4 inch wide, full length hood decals. I wish I knew how to post pics, but I can e-mail or text some. I'd guess a dozen cans of what I used would surely paint a "G" tractor. Out of 24 cans, I never had ONE plug or puke droplets on my painting job.

Crushed glass is great, aluminum oxide is best (but more expensive) and coal slag works just fine and it's easy to get. A slight "dusty" look to the surface after blasting is a good thing as it provides that "etched" surface for the paint to stick to. And if you are going to go thru all that work, don't use spray cans. Before you paint use compressed air and a brush (a shower back brush works good) to remove any crud left behind.

Also... before you media blast plug every hole and crack the best you can. Duct tape is a good thing.

I think I might still have the can in my paint locker. I'll check.